Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff was quick to react to the US election result.

Almost before Barack Obama's victory was confirmed, she used a public event in Brasilia to send her warmest wishes to him and the US people.

And she would, she said, be calling him later to offer her congratulations.

But President Rousseff's reaction seems to stem less from the hope of great things to come in the US-Brazil relationship than relief at the continuity in the White House.

In fact, even if Republican Mitt Romney had triumphed, analysts suggest relations between the two biggest countries in the Americas would have been little altered.

Ties grew stronger during George W Bush's time in office and have matured under President Obama, although some tensions persist.

Barack Obama called Brazil's former president Lula 'the most popular politician on earth'

"The US-Brazil relationship is strengthening increasingly, not only at a government level but also between companies, non-governmental organisations and with tourists going back and forth," says Geraldo Zahran from a Sao Paulo-based research group, the Political Observatory of the United States.

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